Smetona King?

Crown. Anton Smetona, popular father of his country and the first and present President of the republic of Lithuania (founded 1918), politely, firmly, magnificently refused the offer of a golden crown last week. A group of tenacious monarchists raised the flag of royalism, which has been a dead emblem many years, because they felt that the country would prosper, as it did of old, under the sway of an autocrat and because they thought that the President, with themselves as his courtiers and advisors, could raise the standard of Lithuania to its highest eminence.

The news leaked out through a diplomatic source in Berlin, despatches from Kovno, the "temporary" capitalf of Lithuania, having remained discreetly silent, caution that is an almost indispensable accessory to safety under a dictatorship. This fact, alone, gave the whole episode a Graustarkian touch and the chancelleries of Europe resounded with diplomatic conjecture.

Would Anton Smetona persist in refusing to be King of Lithuania? That was the core of the diplomats' argument, and they recalled his career.

Career. Anton Smetona, now 53 years of age, is conceded to be one of the greatest Lithuanian patriots of all time. For 20 years he worked for Lithuanian nationalism and independence against the oppression of Tsarist Russia. A diminutive man, dark, with narrow, beady eyes, a stubby goatee spread over his chin and a bushy, drooping moustache hanging orderly from his upper lip, he is an excellent, forceful speaker, sound, indurate, potent.

Scholar, lawyer, publicist, Anton Smetona threw his very soul into a fight for Lithuania against the Russian autocracy. But, hounded by Tsarist secret police, branded by many as a conspirator, blackened as an opportunist, he stood no chance against the arrayed might of Imperial Russia--not until the War.

With the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 Anton Smetona, like Thomas Garrigue Masaryk of Czechoslovakia, with whom he is frequently compared, began to wage a private war for Lithuanian republicanism. The signal chance for the Lithuanian minority in colossal Russia had dawned. By spoken and written word Smetona worked fearlessly for the liberation of his people from the yoke of despotism, resisting equally the Germans, who at one time threatened to end his cherished ideal of a free Lithuania.

With the collapse of Russia and the defeat of Germany his crusade for independence virtually came to an end--Anton Smetona put Lithuania on the map. A Lithuanian government had been elected at Vilna as early as 1917 and the formal independence of the nation was proclaimed on Feb. 16, 1918; the Armistice set the seal of permanency on the young state. Again Lithuania had secured independence.

The growing pains of the young republic soon made themselves evident. Smetona was elected President in 1919 and throughout a long and difficult period, when the drafting of a constitution and the creation of the organizations of government were distracting the attention of the country from outside events, he won de jure recognition of the republic from the Allies, kept, with fitful success, Soviet Russia at arms length during the Russo-Polish war and lost in a heated quarrel with Poland over Vilna (TiME, March 24, 1923), although the possession of the ancient city is by no means recognized as final in Lithuania.

President Smetona was succeeded by Alexander Stulginskis in 1922, followed by Kasimir Grinius in 1926, who, last year, came within an ace of concluding an effective treaty with the hated Bolsheviki. But the wary Smetona was watching. He had not preached the gospel of aloofness from Russia for twenty years for nothing. On Dec. 17 (TIME, Dec. 27) he organized a bloodless revolution, made President Grinius resign and forced the Seimas (Parliament) to select him again as Chief Executive, thus legalizing his position. Since that day he has retained almost dictatorial power.

In Kovno. A royalist coup d'etat in a country like Lithuania is not impossible; it all depends on the army; for the mass of the people is too ignorant to be much concerned with politics. A king by any other name is all the same to them. But there is one who has to be reckoned with. Was Smetona thinking of him when he refused the proffered kingship? His name is Augustine Valdemaras and he is Prime Minister. What Prof. Valdemaras' opinion is on the subject of orbs, crowns, sceptres, was undeterminable, but it is known that he likes to pose as the Mussolini of Lithuania, and hence it is assumed that he would be hostile to a monarchical regime.

Impartial observers, however, doubt that he would be able to collect a big enough army to maintain him in power should President Smetona decide after all that a golden crown would look becoming; for Prime Minister Valdemaras is hated, feared; President Smetona, loved, respected.

But the fact remains that the President has rejected royal offers, some say because he thinks it is bad enough to be President for a few years without wanting to be King for life. It is recalled, though, that once before a group of too enthusiastic royalists wanted him to become their monarch, a proposal loudly applauded by the populace, not so much because they desired a monarchy as because they desired to honor Smetona, the idol of the republic. The President on this occasion merely smiled; later, he sternly rebuked the monarchistic men.